For most of the movie, “Frank” seems to be “Spinal Tap” for all those post-modernist-neo-expressionist-whatever bands who do entire “experimental” albums based on distortion. The band members are appropriately absurd – a lead singer who never takes off his paper mache head, an eternally angry woman who mostly contributes screeching noises, and a broody French duo who take everything deathly seriously. Gleeson is a charming tour guide through the insanity, and the source of several of the film’s biggest laughs.

In the last fifteen minutes, however, the comedy suddenly drops away to reveal an ultimately tragic look at mental illness, the beauty of the strangest, even most broken bonds, and accepting that reality isn’t always the way we’d like it to be. To “Frank,” the strangeness was never a joke. It was simply a painful truth.